Who needs race chips and official timers when you have GPS

Last Sunday's Koga 10k was my Winter 2016 "A race"   --- the test of whether my additional run training volume over the past 3 months would enable me to get my 10k time back down by a minute to where I feel I should be running when I am in proper condition.

The race was going pretty well - I tucked in behind a pack of college runners who were hitting a consistent pace, and at 6k my teammate Hoel caught up with our pack, further inspiring me to maintain my goal pace. 

Unfortunately the pack took a wrong turn at 8k. I had been very focused on staying with my pack and had no recollection of seeing a turnoff.  Even as we approached 10 kilometers on my GPS watch, I continued to cling to the delusion that I was on course, and I  searched desperately for the turn that would take us into the stadium and the finish line.  It was only at this point that it begun to dawn on me that we were doing a 3rd loop of the 2-loop course.  

I slowed down after covering 10k and jogged through the 3rd loop as a cool down.  I felt livid - in my mind I cursed the race officials (even though our pack were the only runners who seemed to have missed the turn).  My one best chance for fast a 10k was lost!  All the training wasted!  All my dreams turned to dust (okay, okay I am exaggerating a bit -- at this point in life I have a little more perspective, but still I was distressed). 

Distressed until I uploaded my splits onto Strava and saw that the GPS technology had credited me with a 35:54, my fastest 10k in several years and faster than I had dared hope for.  Granted, during the race I had noticed that my Garmin watch was buzzing with a split about 2-3 seconds before we reached each official kilometer split sign.  But I tell myself that even if I add 30 seconds then subtract a bunch of time for the furious kick I no doubt would have unleashed in the stadium finish, I still would be close enough to round down to 36 minutes. And so I declare victory.    

Who cares that in the official race results I finish near last place.  I decide to focus on the more favorable GPS time.  Which you can see in this lovely screen capture of the Strava splits: 

Embracing Strength Training 2 - Paradox of choice

Which strength drills should I actually do?  

I have been paralyzed by way too many choices.  I have viewed countless You-Tube videos of different drills - along with practically every week receiving some email article of Top-5  exercises for runners, for cyclists, for swimmers, for people with weak hips, for people with weak hamstrings, for people with weak achilles, for the aged, for the busy executive, for the lame. 

I have exercises that a pilates instructor highly recommended to me, drills a physical trainer implored me to do, and poses my yoga teacher said were absolutely, absolutely essential. It seems I could do different exercises all day and all night and not repeat a single one of them.  

Moreover, I occasionally watch someone else in the gym do some new exercise and I think to myself - "oh, wow, that's what I should be doing" then I surreptitiously try to imitate them.

So most evenings I would sit and ponder all these possible different exercises that I am supposed to be doing until I grew exhausted just thinking about it and then just crack open a beer.  
For the purposes of my 3-month quantified test, I resolve that that I need to narrow down my strength session to a reasonable number of basic exercises that fit into the time I have after my swim and that I will stick with for 3 months.  I take advantage of the abundance of equipment at the fitness center to do some drills I normally would otherwise never bother with. 

- I select 4 of the simplest, most traditional, tried and true lifts (and I can quantify)
- I choose basic core body drills
- I pick some exercises that are addressing specific run/triathlon weakness issues:

• Bench press
• Dumb-bell military press
• Concentration curls
• Lat Pulldowns 
• Calf Raises

• Pushups (with plank drills)*
• Superman
• Dips
• Exercise ball pass 

• Single-leg deadlift
• Bridge with leg lift
• Crab walk with elastic band
• Lunges (in swimming pool)
• Burpees 

I would also do squats.  But I simply can't.  Not correctly.   I fall over backwards. 


____________________________________________________

*My core exercise (core in several senses of the word) is still the push-up.  

I posted before about the reputed merits of the humble push-up -- how it is the ultimate barometer of whole body fitness, and about my effort to be able to exceed the benchmark for my age group (27 push-ups at the time).  

So now as part of my 2016 resolution to embrace strength training and enjoy seeing actual improvement, I revisit my push-up performance metric.

In the years since the earlier post I had settled at around a maximum of 50 push-ups (on a really good day).   But I am not even sure if I can really credit myself with 50 push-ups.  You see I have developed my own system of "resting" (or "cheating" essentially) in plank and downward dog (the inverted V yoga pose).  I like my system because it incorporates these other basic, valuable core muscle exercises as the "easy" part of my goal-driven push-up effort.

I google "push-up rules"  and while I cannot find a definitive ruling it seems clear that I must keep my body straight at all times, meaning no resting in downward dog.  

So for purposes of my Spring 2016 program I keep my back straight and work my way back up, adding 1 more push-up each day - a few weeks ago I collapsed after 39.  Yesterday I completed 58.  

Embracing Strength Training

Speaking of biases.  For years when I passed by the weight-lifting gym on my way to a spin class or the pool I would glance over at the weight-lifters with a sense of superiority.  All these narcisstic guys in their muscle shirts and belts prancing around for hours staring at themselves in the wall-to-wall mirrors and occasionally straining to hoist some big weight.  I would congratulate myself on how I am meanwhile engaged in my much healthier sport of triathlon -- preparing for a great competitive endeavor with my triathlete community in the great outdoors.  

Being as scrawny and weak as I am though, perhaps I am just envious? And in any case my lack of strength seems to be my key limitation in triathlon. So this month I resolved to overcome my bias and embrace the sport of weightlifting  (at least for the off-season) especially given that: 

1. I increasingly hear that strength work is just as important (some argue MORE important!) than the triathlon type cardio/aerobic training for overall health (especially as you get older) 



 2. Like so many millions of people, I have been stressed over the thought that I am paying so darn much for my overpriced fitness club every month, and I am not adequately utilizing it



3. I crave quantifiable progress. With running and swimming it has been soooo hard to break out of my plateau - I long for the instant gratification of tangible improvement 

So my idea is to create more of a a sense of purpose around weight-training - instead of only half-heartedly going through the dreary motions of lifting -- I will try to lift a bit more every few weeks.  Like the Greek legend, Milo of Croton starting out with his newborn calf and lifting it everyday until he is lifting a full-grown bull.  Not that I am necessarily so concerned about being able to lift a bull.  Over 3-months of 3x per week progressive overload I just hope I can achieve some measurable improvement.  Perhaps it will benefit my running and triathlon performance.  Perhaps not.  Regardless, I embarked on my program a few weeks ago with a piece of notebook paper to jot my results and with great enthusiasm.   

And so far it is working!  For example with dips I add 1 more each session.  10 days ago I absolutely collapsed off the bars after 11, but then two days later I could do 12 before I collapsed.  Then 13.  Yesterday I did 16! 

It is so satisfying.  It seems the physiological benefit of progressive stress adaptation gets combined with the mental focus and confidence of doing just one more rep each session.  

It is like training for a half-marathon for me in earlier times before the plateau - every Sunday just add one more mile at like like 5:30 per mile. 






And I can admire myself in the wall-to-wall mirror 

  

High intensity intervals vs Longer, slow, steady runs

After my last post I have been told that I am living in a high-intensity-interval “echo chamber.” In other words, I am like a climate change denier who only seeks out articles arguing that climate change is not occurring, and becomes caught in an "echo chamber" continuously being only fed yet more such articles by social media, search and his circle of friends, and where competing views are screened out.  I am only reading that high-intensity is beneficial, and long-slow marathon training is somehow “old-school” and “ineffectual” and more likely to lead to burnout and over-use injury (see my last post below).  Moreover, when I lead my weekly high-intensity hill repeats or run Wednesday intervals and ask this self-selected group of participants, they all heartily agree that sprinting up a hill at a crazed level of exertion is the ultimate healthy activity.  

Maybe there is a whole world of evidence that sticking to 100% longer, easier, aerobic runs is optimal?   Longer, steady-state runs seem to be what most of my marathon-focused teammates do almost exclusively, most all the time. Maybe they know something I don't?      

So in my effort to break out of my narrow, close-minded gated community, I find another computer, log-in with a different name and seek articles on the merit of longer, steady exercise.  My search delivers an odd assortment of viewpoints --

• The Oatmail comic outrunning "The Blerch"
• The spiritual pursuits of the Marathon Monks, Christian runners, and Sri Chimnoy
• Paeans to deep, metaphysical, transformative powers of long runs 
• A very old book suggesting that Longer runs are more humane 
• This post arguing that cross-fit enthusiasts are wrong to “rubbish" long slow distance training, that high-intensity exercise is MORE likely to cause injury, and that most people are essentially best to stick to long, slow running 
• "Going Slower to get Faster" on the merits of aerobic “base phase” training
• Or similarly "No Substitute for LSD" chronicling the tendency of "adult-onset" athletes to steadily improve until they crash, and then struggle to return because of endless racing and lack of long recovery runs 
• Laundry lists of physiological and mental benefits of long training sessions
• Perhaps most representative is "Steady-state Cardio vs. High-Intensity-Interval Training" which contrasts "Jane" who only does steady-state runs and "Susan" who only does  high intensity workouts. The article goes on to tell us (not exactly a surprise) that the best program is a combination of both -- along with the customary emphasis on the importance of seasonality (periodization)

My quick reaction - 

1. Wow - there are people that do ONLY high intensity training?

Apparently there is this whole world of sedentary Americans whose only exercise is Crossfit and intense treadmill workouts.  My heart cries out - I feel such sympathy for them.  

2. For runners just 10-20% high intensity seems more appropriate 

3. My triathlete teammates scoff at this idea of long, aerobic base training as "just so 1970s" favoring "reverse periodization"

4. Importance of seasonality - Yeah, yeah, yeah,  see  my "off season" post among others below

5. Reading all these long paeans to the spiritual joy of really really long runs is even more boring than really really long runs

6. Ultimately my effort to be open-minded is an abysmal failure.  Alas, the most compelling data point I stumbled across was this article which largely supports my prevailing view (bias).  The US Military(!) -- that same institution that produced the original 1960s era data on the health benefits of long running — has decided to increase the intensity of their troop’s training and reduce the volume of running based on extensive evidence of over-use injuries and troop performance.

No Race For Old Men

I have been increasingly an advocate for shorter distance racing and training.  High intensity is better as we get older I keep reading.  All the rock star over-50 runners at Seattle’s Club Northwest focus on 5k and cross country and they have been absolutely thriving - blasting through 5k under 18, even 17 minutes as they pass the 50-year, even 60-year mark.   And the guys I remember from the Seattle running scene from years ago who did lots of marathons? I don’t see their names on any race finisher lists any more, or even hear about them running at all - I imagine them shuffling around a nursing home unable to bend down and tie their own shoes after all the damage to their legs from the marathon training.  I have come to see intense training as the fountain of youth. 

So Sunday's Shibuya Ekiden (Relay) should be perfect for my program to maintain this vitality — a lung-searing 2.9 kilometer sprint around a tight park course.  

In past years (see these posts from 2014 and 2015), I achieved great  glory in the over-40 age group relay team.

But this year I find myself the anchor runner on my team's open division A team - I am a last-second substitute on this team of young, fast runners.  When the 3rd runner hands me the sash our team is hanging onto 3rd place and poised for another glorious place on the podium.  I tell myself to give it everything and hold off the other runners - I essentially need to just run the kind-of two mile time I could easily do when I first started running years ago, the kind of speed an average high school kid can do.   I manage to hold onto 3rd for the first kilometer, but then a lithe college aged runner glides me like I am not moving.  Around the hallway point another college kid passes me, and then another. And then yet another.  I see my teammates along the race course exhorting me to somehow speed up and hold off the college aged competition as I lumber along, but I simply don't have the speed to summon. Finally I stagger across the finish line in 7th place.  
  

Here is a picture of me at the finish line looking shell-shocked. I am remembering why athletes turn to longer races as they get older, and I ponder if I should have acted my age and joined my aged teammates doing a half-marathon that same morning in Chiba.   

Run Training Summary

All three of the 10k races this fall have been slightly off my desired competitive level - a 37:20 at Bbq Run, a 37:15 on slightly shorter but hilly Run for Cure, and a 39:09 at Chiang Mai 10.6k (which I am generously adjusting to 37 minutes flat for 10k).  

Why?  As you can see in my Run Mileage Chart below, my running had fallen off during the summer triathlon season

Quantity fell off more than quality as this graph suggests (and I am more of a proponent of quality). But quality was also compromised by all the tiring swim and spin sessions. 

But in recent weeks, as you can see, run training volume is up.  Given my experience in recent years that would suggest that I will be in great running shape by around April or May.  Unfortunately by that time I will be well into triathlon season, and there are few run races anyway.

2015 Chiang Mai 10.6k

I return to Chiang Mai, the wonderfully affordable holiday destination, in hopes of achieving further glory at the Chiang Mai Marathon events.

  

I had placed first overall in the half-marathon four years ago, back when the event was a small, homey affair, and we chatted with the race director and got to know many of the other runners, and practically our only spectators at the sunrise event were some ladyboys heading home after working at the bars all night.  Now the Chiang Mai event has grown into a regional economic juggernaut with over 7,000 participants coming from all over the world, hundreds of volunteers, costumed dancers and musicians, and the entire city festooned with garish banners welcoming the runners and sound trucks crawling through the city streets blaring out announcements for the race. I had watched the first “Hunger Games” movie on the flight over, and all this new powerful, Chiang Mai Marathon event build-up and pageantry reminded me of the spectacle built up around the hunger games contest in the dystopian movie.  

I join over 2,000 other runners in the 10.6-kilometer event (there are 4 races starting one hour apart).  We start the race to an explosion of cannons shooting smoke into the air, rows of musicians beating on drums, and the city's top celebrities and political officials cheering us on.  I start on the front line which appears to have been a mistake as runners burst past me and I am nearly knocked off my feet by a guy in an orange singlet sprinting at absolutely full speed.

I stay behind Arnaud, and at 1k which we apparently ran in 3:53, there are at least 20 guys ahead of us and I wonder whether it was cocky of me to have expected to be on the podium at all – even just for my age group. 

At the starting line we had identified other runners in our age group based on their race numbers including a local 50-59 year old Thai clad in clunky red generic shoes and cheap cotton shorts, who had warmly wished me well in the race. He did not look like a particularly elite athlete – I understood him to say that he was a worker in a rice farming village to the south of Chiang Mai.  But this age-group rival burst quickly out at the start, and I knew he must be in the large pack ahead of me, a pack that seemed to be pulling further and further ahead. So I reluctantly surged past Arnaud and begin picking off the other runners one by one. By 3k I spotted the heavy red shoes of my local Thai age-group competitor and I settled in behind him for awhile. When I had gather enough strength to sprint past him he valiantly tried to stay with me, but after his fast start was laboring and eventually dropped off.

Ultimately I managed to move all the way up to 4th position almost catching the guy in the orange singlet who had almost knocked me down at the start and who apologized profusely when he turned and saw me cross the finish line.

Naturally there are lavish awards to the victors in this epic tournament.  Here you can see me being awarded with an extravagant 3,000 baht first-place cash prize – an enormous amount of money in low-cost northern Thailand.

My rival in the bulky red shoes is gracious and magnanimous in the face of his crushing defeat afterwards. I feel almost bad to have denied him victory, presuming he would make better use of the huge prize winning.  I ponder settling in Chiang Mai myself and living off the prize money.   

Instead I somehow managed to squander every last cent of my precious winnings within the next day, frivolously blowing it all on over-priced, airport pastries and cappuccinos, useless plasticky Christmas trinkets, and ephemeral, online text stickers...

My "off-season" - 4 random races over 5 short weeks

I felt exhausted after my effort at the Korea Half-Ironman.  Korea was my end-of-season “A” race.  According to most any authority on endurance training, this past month should really have been my “off-season”-- a time when I primarily rest along with some strength work and perhaps spend some time on my various minor technique weaknesses (my swim kick, my bike cornering, quickly removing my wetsuit…) 

But no, no, no – I have an odd assortment of events on my calendar: FOUR completely different competitive endeavors over the five weekends following October 4^th:

1.     Shimoda Triathlon 4 / October 11 – I can’t miss the social event of the season – the 4^th informal Shimoda Triathlon.  I enjoy my strongest swim in 2 years in the stormy Shimoda cove, but the fact that it pours down rain during the bike effectively ends my competitive effort halfway through the bike.  I just try not to crash on the scary steep downhill sections amidst the total deluge. 

2.     Inage Aquathlon / October 17 – I have long wanted to do an Aquathlon – a two-stage run/swim race - and I could not pass up the opportunity to join a half-dozen teammates for this 1.5k swim and 10k run.  I really was curious to experience running immediately after the swim and address the question of how strong of run I could do coming off the swim, versus coming off the bike.  The answer: not very strong at all.  I have always been dazed at start of bike in triathlon.  On the bike I could coast.  On the run at Inage I was just suffering – struggling to do 4-minute pace (ouch).  Still I mange to win my age group in time of 1:14:14.

3.     Pacific Northwest Cross Country Championship / November 1 – Hey, why not jump in the local cross country championship in my continuing pursuit of varied events?   Of course I was very much out of my element.. All (and I mean all) the other guys on the Club Northwest team seem totally (and I mean totally) focused on cross country – “I have been doing dedicated cross country workouts since mid-summer” one of the guys tells me – “these are far and away our most important races of the year”.  I have done zero dedicated cross country workouts this year (along with this one last year).   None of the athletes I know in California, Tokyo, Singapore, etc. ever talk about cross country (bar a few hard-core British runners).  I am asked if I will wear spikes in the race. Spikes?  I haven’t worn spike in decades. I haven’t even remotely considered wearing spikes in decades.

So I guess it was understandable that I floundered on the steep, slippery half of the course, but I would like to do better in this type of event.  What was particularly disconcerting to me was that even when I got to the hard-packed trail portion of the course I was still way off my recent race pace.  My pace for the 6k course?  3:59 per kilometer (again - ouch)  28th place out of 64 guys.  

4.     Barbeque 10k / November 8 – I am there for the barbeque (and opportunity for a pure running event).   

I run 37:20. 

 Compare to last year’s 36:59 when my training had been more concentrated on running.  Felt surprisingly good at the start of the race, but my energy fades over the 10k.  (Only 10k - how can I fade?!  Apparently the lower running mileage 30k-40k per week this year versus 50k-70k last year?  or the lack of race-specific training?) 

Qualified for World Half-Ironman Triathlon Championships

I make the podium at the Korea Half-Ironman triathlon on Sunday finishing in second place among the 44 entrants in my age group.

As you can see I am happy to make podium in a triathlon (one thing for me to make the podium in a run event, but triathlon has been a bit more challenging/competitive)

My time of 5:11:37 falls short of my dream of breaking 5 hours, but it is my PB for the distance by 6 minutes: 

Swim -   43:37

Bike -  2:42:52

Run -  1:39:19

T1&2 -   5:47 

Total -  5:11:37

Swim- My swim felt strong, but when I look at my watch at the end, I am a bit dismayed to see that I am still swimming way slower than the pace I consistently raced at several years ago (even slower than the splits at my two Ironman distance races – both splits at Frankfurt where I swam a 1:16 in a wetsuit with a broken zipper).  I have done far more quality swim training sessions in 2015 than any other year.  The more swim training I do, the slower it seems that I swim. 

Bike - I don’t really allow myself to worry about my slow swim though as I stagger into T1. I tell myself that a slow swim is not fatal to my overall race time goals given the relatively small weight of the swim in a half-ironman triathlon, and I manage to turn my attention to consuming gels and powering up to race pace on the bike.  






I also manage pay some attention to the picturesque mountain setting - Gurye is nestled in a mountains of south, central Korea –an ideal venue for a half-ironman with the flat river plain. 









I averaged 33km/hour on the relatively flat, fast bike course – my strength ebbing slightly over the last 20k or so. It was during these last 20k thatI caught my mates Henrik and (amazingly) David who I presumed was far, far ahead of me, but was having an off day.  It really helped to have the teammates to pull me along.  My shortage this year of long bike training sessions was starting to make an impact.  This lack of training did not seem to have actually affected my race performance yet – though it would take a toll on the run. 

Run - I chatted with David in the transition tent, and when I passed him at the start of the run he shouted encouragement at me to break 5-hours.  Breaking 5-hours would entail running an extraordinary pace for me given how trashed my legs felt from the bike. But I told myself that I felt strong, I would give it everything I had or die trying, and soon I was actually running close to 4-minutes per kilometer pace.  Amazingly all the way through the first lap of the 2-loop run I managed to maintain this suicidal pace. 

But when we started the second lap things deteriorated. From 12k to 16k was just a bad, bad period. I hear other endurance athletes talk about being masochistic – enjoying the pain somehow.  Well, I would prefer to minimize the amount of time I spend at the level of misery I felt during that section of the run.  After walking through the aid station at the turnaround at 16k and starting to head back toward the finish line I managed to regain strength and achieve a better mindset and focus on “form under duress”.  

I felt pretty satisfied with my effort as I crossed the finish line and the medical staff dragged me to the massage tent and I thought about how my hard triathlon training was finally over.  And I’d vanquished the ghosts from my debacle in the Taiwan half-ironman. 

 

Oh.  And I qualified for the World Championships. 

Making it to the Worlds had been something of a goal for me to justify the training and feel like a real triathlete again. But spots in the half-ironman championships next September in Australia have become increasingly coveted.   

I was ready with my credit card in case I did qualify. Yes, they charge you for the entry fee and even expect you to pay right on the spot.  People have asked me if I received any prize money or cool stuff like in running events..  No, no, no – remember triathlon is targeted at an upscale demographic market segment.   Basically in triathlon if you place well you just earn the privilege of registering for even more wildly expensive events.  

Actually tho the registration did include this dorky hat and this really keen combination bottle-opener/keychain 

HIIT and the Social Athlete

The NYTimes published a series of articles last year extolling the virtues of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).   High Intensity training is simply a series of very short burst of exercise at near maximum effort followed by recovery. The training concept has long been utilized among endurance athletes (Sebastian Coe doing wildly fast 200-meter repeats, the Tabata Protocol workouts, etc) with more rapid and efficient improvement in aerobic capacity and racing performance versus steady-state workouts.  More recently there has been various research suggesting metabolic benefits - fat-burning, insulin resistance, long-term cardiovascular benefits, neurological benefits, and more - hence the NYTimes articles urging even the most sedentary types to take on a regiment of painfully intense sprints on stationary bikes, rowing machines, boot-camp calisthenics, etc. 

  

 I seem to have inadvertently become something of an evangelist for this High Intensity Training myself. Saturday after Saturday I find myself leading a group repeatedly sprinting up  a series of nearby hills.  I had started these sessions some 20 months ago with two other runners as a brief off-season strength building effort.  These two teammates are long gone.  But, much to my surprise -- my extraordinary surprise -- the painful Hill Repeats have lived on.   

I thought perhaps everyone else had been reading the NYTimes Wellness columns.  Why else would they subject themselves to hill repeats?   But the other participants look at me blankly when I asked them if they are joining the workout because of the metabolic benefits..

After reading all these articles I had started to assume that everyone must be on the HIIT bandwagon, however when I look around at pool or gym, 90% of other people exercising are just plodding along at a steady pace.  Even  in my spin class, many of the participants hardly follow the instructors urging them to sprint and to climb.   I can certainly understand why most people prefer a long, easier steady workout -- I envy the blissed out swimmers gliding serenely through water while I am bent over the edge of pool gasping for breath.  I much prefer just being lost in thought on run through forests and not being a slave to my watch.  So I was not surprised last week the NYT comes out with a story about Danish researchers who are shocked, shocked!, that not every middle-aged, overweight, sedentary person has embraced a  intense, painful interval regime

The Danish researchers go on to contrive a formulaic workout which they argue will make high-intensity training appealing to the masses.   But my own experience with Saturday Hill Repeats makes me wonder if turning a challenging exercise program into a habit is so much a function of the specific workout structure.  The Hill Repeats benefit more from the fact it works for all speeds with the fastest runners turning around and uniting with the slower runners as they jog back down the hill after each hill repeat (in contrast to say a long, fast group bicycle ride where all but the fastest cyclists ride in constant fear of being “dropped” and then struggling on their own for the remainder of the ride, perhaps becoming hopelessly lost on some distant mountain course).  The Hill Repeat dynamic is similar to what has made the Hash House Harriers surprisingly popular with its weird, convoluted system of a “hare” setting up a false course so the fastest runners would intentionally get “lost” and backtrack to the slower runners.  

 

Moreover, the Saturday Hill Repeats team is very diligent about Social Media. We seem to always take time for the all-important photo ops.

Not to mention the critical post-workout reward and camaraderie with Starbucks and museum visits and global brunch experiences after each workout